Nielsen Research Shows Smartphone are 28% of US Cellphone Market

Nielsen released some great data this week about smartphone usage in the US. A whopping 28% of US cellphone users now have smartphones. The news is not good for RIM which had its share drop to 30% which is really close to Apple’s 28%. They also found that RIM’s market share is highest in the 45+ age group while competitors have a larger share of the younger market. This makes sense since RIM’s core base is in the enterprise but it really needs to make a bigger dent in the young consumer market if it wants to stick around. I am really hoping RIM can turn this downward slope into a smile in 2011. 🙂

This chart shows the breakdown:

Another interesting data point is that 50% of Android owners are under the age of 35. They also found that Apple has the largest smartphone share of smartphone users under 44 while RIM has the most users 45 and up.

They also found that smartphone users are more diverse than regular cellphone users though I am not sure what to make of those data points.